More than 85% of Fortune 500 companies use 360 degree feedback for their leadership development programs. 360 degree appraisal is a feedback framework that gives a holistic view of an employee’s performance by gathering anonymous and confidential feedback from all the stakeholders involved with the employee’s work.

The feedback mechanism is gaining importance with continuous performance management system to conduct a fair and unbiased performance appraisal process. When many parties are commenting on an employee’s behavior, the leaders in the top tier cannot review an employee based on just their opinions, which could have been influenced by manager bias, halo effect, horns effect, central tendency bias, etc.

Why 360 Degree Feedback is Needed Now More Than Ever?

The workforce is distributed in today’s work environment, and the times are still uncertain due to the emergence of new strains and the prevalence of confusion among businesses whether they should open up or not or should they adopt a hybrid model. However, the companies are choosing the work model based on a few predictions and their operational convenience.

The management has been pushed to a situation, where they have to adopt a performance management system that works effectively, regardless of the working model. Added to the stress, employees would be worried about their appraisal process.

Owing to continuous check-ins, they would have already established a rapport with the manager, but still, when communication happens only through phone calls, there are higher chances of a communication gap.

In such scenarios, 360 degree feedback helps by bringing together anonymous feedback from peers, direct reports, and cross-functional managers to HR for objectively evaluating the employee’s performance. Definitely, there would be bias in those surveys too but when the average is taken, the process, in most cases, is fair.

In addition to that, 360 degree feedback promotes collaboration by building a robust system, which eventually brings about a nurturing growth culture.

What are the benefits of 360 degree feedback?

 Fair Appraisal Process and Self Awareness

The mechanism alleviates the stress of employees working from their remote workplaces as they can now be assured that the appraisal would not be based on a single person’s conversation, which might have or have not gone wrong. Besides, the framework helps the workforce identify their strengths and weaknesses.

Thus, eventually, continuous learning becomes a part of the culture, which has become the priority of candidates and existing employees over pay. If you want to increase the retention rate, implementing modern performance management features with the help of technology would greatly help.

Empowering Employees by Giving Them a Platform to Express

Only 46% of employees in the US feel that the management hears their voice. Also, a study suggests that employees perform well when they are cherished and heard by the company. 360 degree feedback allows the subordinates to comment on their leaders’ behavior and way of handling situations while keeping the identity of the feedback giver confidential.

Leaders can consider this as an opportunity to work on their areas of improvement and grow stronger. Even in horizontal conversations, peers hesitate to comment on an employee’s performance as they are worried about their relationship with the colleague. 360 degree feedback provides the right platform to eliminate all such concerns and work toward one’s development.

Improved Performance and Boosted Employee Morale

An employee learns the gaps in his/her skills and eventually they work harder to bridge those gaps. The remote working scenario helps the employees to have more time for themselves.

When the weaknesses are worked on, they would gradually improve the performance and productivity of the employee. The employees do know when they start performing better, and that would give them a whole new world of self-confidence, which also stems from being in a culture of openness and development.

Lower Employee Turnover Rate

Remote employees get an opportunity to express their concerns and appreciation about superiors and peers through 360 degree feedback. The process does not stop there. The important step of 360 degree feedback is that the management has to take action on the comments and suggestions. The mechanism helps in three ways.

1. To review employee performance
2. To bridge the performance and behavioral gaps in employees
3. To build mutual trust and loyalty between the employers and employees

When the company adopts a strategy that can incorporate what the modern workforce needs, the employees will be engaged. Happy and engaged employees stay with a company for a long time, thus reducing the employee turnover rate.

How to Implement 360 Degree Feedback?

1. Decide the purpose of conducting the survey.
2. Curate questions in the survey according to your purpose.
3. Assess an employee based on his/her work-related behavior and job description, not as an individual.
4. Provide training to the employees on what is 360 degree feedback, how it will be used, and why your company has embraced the feature as part of the system.
5. Protect privacy and keep the senders’ identity confidential for the feedback to be genuine.
6. Take action on the concerns expressed.
7. Bring technology into your business operations and processes to keep the workflow simple.

Read Articles: Reasons Why 360 Degree Feedback are useful for Millennials

In a Nutshell

Organizations have realized the significance of having robust systems in place to sustain their businesses in any kind of work environment. Talents are a company’s greatest assets, and so managing their performance is inevitable. The indispensable features that create a strong and powerful performance management system include continuous check-ins, 360 degree feedback, goal setting, rewards and recognition, and training and development.

Among the mentioned processes, 360 degree feedback plays a vital role as that is the only means by which the workforce as a whole can grow. Implement the feedback framework in your company by combining it with technology like Synergita and see the results for yourself. The management can make informed decisions by leveraging the power of digital reports, comments, and sentiment analysis of 360 degree feedback.

Do you use 360 degree feedback for your organization? Give us a call today; We shall give you a detailed demo of the feature.